p
and down with every wave. By some inexplicable means these cocoa-nuts were
all steadily approaching towards the ship. As I leaned curiously over the
side, endeavouring to solve their mysterious movements, one mass, far in
advance of the rest, attracted my attention. In its centre was something I
could take for nothing else than a cocoa-nut, but which I certainly
considered one of the most extraordinary specimens of the fruit I had ever
seen. It kept twirling and dancing about among the rest in the most
singular manner: and as it drew nearer, I thought it bore a remarkable
resemblance to the brown shaven skull of one of the savages. Presently it
betrayed a pair of eyes, and soon I became aware that what I had supposed
to have been one of the fruit was nothing else than the head of an
islander, who had adopted this singular method of bringing his produce to
market. The cocoa-nuts were all attached to one another by strips of the
husk, partly torn from the shell, and rudely fastened together. Their
proprietor, inserting his head into the midst of them, impelled his
necklace of cocoa-nuts through the water by striking out beneath the
surface with his feet.

I was somewhat astonished to perceive that among the number of natives
that surrounded us, not a single female was to be seen. At that time I was
ignorant of the fact that by the operation of the "taboo," the use of
canoes in all parts of the island is rigorously prohibited to the entire
sex, for whom it is death even to be seen entering one when hauled on
shore; consequently, whenever a Marquesan lady voyages by water, she puts
in requisition the paddles of her own fair body.

We had approached within a mile and a half perhaps of the foot of the bay,
when some of the islanders, who by this time had managed to scramble
aboard of us at the risk of swamping their canoes, directed our attention
to a singular commotion in the water ahead of the vessel. At first I
imagined it to be produced by a shoal of fish sporting on the surface, but
our savage friends assured us that it was caused by a shoal of
"whinhenies" (young girls), who in this manner were coming off from the
shore to welcome us. As they drew nearer, and I watched the rising and
sinking of their forms, and beheld the uplifted right arm bearing above
the water the girdle of tappa, and their long dark hair trailing beside
them as they swam, I almost fancied they could be nothing else than so
many mermaids:--and ve